Whelan was 23 when he lined up for Blackburn Rovers at the old Wembley stadium. By the 43rd minute of the match, his career at the club was over. With half-time approaching and Blackburn trailing to an own-goal, the young left-back flew into a challenge with the Wolves winger Norman Deeley, a moment that changed his life.

"I knew immediately when he hit me that my leg was broken," says Whelan. "I was running at full pace – obviously you can't stop."

As both players lay on the grass, the referee waved play on. Eventually Deeley made it to his feet. He went on to score two goals and win the man of the match award. Whelan was taken off on a stretcher and woke up in hospital.

"The first thing I remember after coming round is being wheeled down a hospital corridor with the surgeon at my side," says Whelan. "I opened my eyes and asked him, 'How have Blackburn got on?'. He said: 'I'm sorry, you've lost 3-0.' I started crying. It just burst out of me. I was absolutely desperate, in despair as I lay in that hospital bed."

Whelan's return to a Cup final with Wigan ranks as one of the most remarkable Wembley stories. But football has a cruel way of being kind. Three days after celebrating the first major trophy in Wigan's 81-year history, the Cup winners' careers took a turn for the worse after a 4-1 defeat at Arsenal on Tuesday night.

Footballers at the top of the game exist in a cosseted world of privilege, but relegation is about as close to real life as it gets. Going down a division brings with it concerns and worries uncommon to men who receive more in a month that the rest of us earn in our entire careers.

Sympathising with top-level footballers is not easy, but as The Secret Footballer has explained, relegation can strip players of their comforts and make them susceptible to the challenges faced by the rest of us: "My contract, as was the case with many of the other players, was about to be cut in half and my assets, mainly property, bought on the back of a Premier League spending spree, were hopelessly exposed. In short, I could not afford to keep up the payments on any of it and as a result everything I owned would be at the mercy of the bank."

Wigan's players have made an odd kind of history. No team has ever won the FA Cup and gone down from the top tier in the same season. A few have come close. Manchester City (1926), Leicester City (1969), Brighton & Hove Albion (1983), Middlesbrough (1997) and Portsmouth (2010) were all relegated as Cup finalists, but unlike Wigan, none of them won the trophy.

It has been an odd week for Whelan, who said that no words could express the emotions he felt on Saturday afternoon. As his club fall off the Premier League gravy train and he has to consider the possibility of losing his manager and Cup-winning squad to the realities of relegation, Whelan can take comfort from knowing that he has rebuilt his life from more crushing disappointments. And, unlike the clubs below, at least Wigan won their final.

Portsmouth 2010: lost to Chelsea

Portsmouth, who will play in the fourth tier of English football next season after finishing bottom of League One in 2012-13, were in the Cup final only three years ago. Didier Drogba scored the only goal of the game to cap a thoroughly miserable end to the season for Portsmouth.

Portsmouth's league campaign was a disaster. They picked up a 10-point penalty for going into administration, but Avram Grant's team would have finished bottom of the league even without the points deduction. Whether they will ever make it back to the top flight or a Cup final remains to be seen, but after three years in freefall, at least their fans now have a say in the running of the club.

Middlesbrough 1997: lost to Chelsea

It's difficult to imagine now, but in the mid-1990s Middlesbrough had one of the most exciting teams in English football. They were spearheaded by Fabrizio Ravanelli, who scored a hat-trick against Liverpool on his debut, but the team's true star was Juninho, who claimed that winning the League Cup with Middlesbrough in 2004 meant more to him than winning the 2002 World Cup with Brazil.

Juninho had three spells with the club, but the 1996-97 season was the dramatic centre of his time in England. Middlesbrough were docked three points for postponing a league match with Blackburn Rovers and, despite the best efforts of TFL (The Little Fella, as Juninho was nicknamed by the Boro fans), they ended up going down. Had they not been deducted those points, Middlesbrough would have finished well clear of the relegation zone. When their fate was confirmed on the final day of the season, Juninho sank to the floor and began to cry.

To add to the heartbreak, Middlesbrough took Leicester City to a replay in the League Cup final before losing to a single goal from Steve Claridge. Their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea in the FA Cup final summed up the brutal disappointment of their season.

Brighton & Hove Albion 1983: lost to Manchester United

Brighton finished bottom of the First Division in 1982-83, the last season they have played in the top tier. Their FA Cup run was, on the other hand, quite incredible. They beat Newcastle in a third round replay, before thumping Manchester City 4-0 in the fourth round. They went to Anfield in the fifth round and beat the eventual league winners Liverpool 2-1. After victories against Norwich City and Sheffield Wednesday, they faced Manchester United in the final.

Brighton have only played in one FA Cup final in their history, so they made sure to enjoy their big day out in 1983. Their sponsors hired a helicopter to take the players from the club's hotel in Croydon to Wembley.

"We were a bunch of jokers," recalled the Brighton midfielder Jimmy Case. "We knew we were the underdogs against United but we were those types of characters anyway. Before the final, we had a lunch and this comedian, Bob 'the Cat' Bevan, who was a Brighton fan, came in and did a show for us before we got on the helicopter." As the Brighton team touched down in a school carpark down the road from Wembley, the pilot declared: "The Seagulls have landed!"

Brighton's league form had been atrocious, but they played well in the final. With a few minutes left, Gary Steven scored their equaliser to force the game into extra time. Gordon Smith could have won the Cup for Brighton in the last minute, when he was sent through one-on-one with the United goalkeeper Gary Bailey. Smith scuffed the shot, Bailey saved it and Brighton's chance was gone. They were thumped 4-0 in the replay five days later.

Leicester City 1969: lost to Manchester City

Leicester have played in four FA Cup finals, but have never won the tournament. They last reached the final in 1969, the same year they were relegated to the Second Division. Neil Young scored the only goal of the game for Manchester City, the reigning First Division champions. City were not to win another FA Cup until 2011, when Roberto Mancini led the club to their first trophy in 35 years. Remember him?

Leicester could at least take comfort from selecting the youngest captain in an FA Cup final. "It was a great honour," said David Nish, who was 21 years old in 1969 and went on to work at Leicester's academy and as a postman in his retirement.

"Leading them out in front of 100,000 people was special and I will always remember the fantastic reception we got from our fans. Playing-wise, though, I was a bit overawed by it all and didn't really concentrate enough on the day. Then there was the Wembley pitch, which had recently staged a horse show, and the state of it was disappointing to say the least."

"After Wembley, we had another five league games to go," said Nish. "We had to go to Old Trafford for the last game to stay up, which was a big ask. I scored in the first minute but 10 minutes later we were 2-1 down and eventually lost 3-2. Being relegated was just as disappointing as losing a Cup final. It was a horrible feeling just sitting there in the dressing room afterwards."

Nish finished his career playing indoor football for the San Jose Earthquakes, but he stuck around to help Leicester City win the Second Division in the 1970-71 season.

Manchester City 1926: lost to Bolton Wanderers

In a sign of the times, Manchester City kicked off their FA Cup campaign with an away tie against amateur club Corinthians. Although Corinthians had been formed in 1882, they were relative FA Cup novices, having waited until 1923 to "depart from their usual rules and take part in a contest which did not have charity as its primary object".

City's Cup run threw up some bizarre scorelines: they drew 3-3 with Corinthians in their first meeting, before beating them 4-0 in the replay; in the fourth round they thrashed the eventual First Division champions Huddersfield Town 4-0; in the fifth round they walloped Crystal Palace 11-4; in the quarter-final they won 6-1 at Clapton Orient; and they beat Manchester United 3-0 at Bramall Lane in their semi-final. Their goalscoring form deserted them during the final, which they lost 1-0 to Bolton Wanderers, who became the first side to win two Wembley finals.

In the league, City finished a single point below both Burnley and Leeds United and went down with Notts County, to be replaced by Derby County and The Wednesday, as they were named until 1929.